One thing I won't forget is that you don't have to touch HV lines, just be close enough for them to arc over. Same story. A freight car was parked underneath one, youngster decides to try the top of the boxcar for a stunning view.

He didn't die but suffered burns, and since it was parked out in the open,his lawyers went for Attractive Nuisance and that the RR company should have known the wire was live and this was going to happen.

fluffy2097:Cerebral Ballsy: I'm gonna guess because the Idiocracy class has never heard of these so-called "amps" and voltage is synonymous with "amount of electricity".

You should probably guess "It's kinda hard to meter the amount of current in an arc flash."

Nope, I'm still going with my answer. Even if you could determine exact amperage, the sad fact is that most people don't understand basic electrical science, and news articles are written to a sixth grade level or below.

Cerebral Ballsy:Nope, I'm still going with my answer. Even if you could determine exact amperage, the sad fact is that most people don't understand basic electrical science, and news articles are written to a sixth grade level or below.

It's because Voltage is the only known value in the equation.

The overhead tram lines provide more or less unlimited current as far as killing people goes. It's got enough current to move entire trains full of people in those wires. There is no way to tell how many amps of current were used to kill this man because of other loads on the wire.

What is known, is the voltage the overhead cables work at.

So the news article uses the voltage, because otherwise they just have to say "quite a lot of electricity."

This. And why do we go through this every single time we have a story about electric shock? Reporters aren't typically well versed in these things and they're writing for an audience who isn't either. Just nod and roll with. Being pedantic is not the way to higher ground.

mrlewish:Wonder why they always mention volts.. It's not the volts that kill you it's the amps.

Considering that the resistance of a human is dependent on many factors, it's difficult to determine what amperage they were accommodating at the time they got bar-b-qued. The voltage is much easier to determine.

Technically, I think a "AA" battery can supply .2 amps (which is enough to fibrillate your heart), but considering your high resistance and the battery's negligible 1.5v, it isn't likely to kill you.

I had a friend who hooked several supposedly mostly dead 9v batteries in series and touched it to his tongue. When he came to, he discovered that he'd pissed his pants. He must have learned something from the experience because now he's an electrical engineer.